Better late than never: Leading hospitality toward a more sustainable path

This doctoral thesis starts with the idea that tourism and hospitality are nature-based industries, since the natural environment plays an extremely relevant role in the attractiveness of tourist destinations and the competitiveness of hospitality businesses. At the same time, however, hospitality companies are responsible for the production of a significant amount of waste and the consumption of a large quantity of natural resources. Hotels and lodgings in general are “both victims and contributors” of environmental degradation, a situation that has led to the so-called “resource-paradox”: the production of tourism experience, in fact, requires the simultaneous consumption and protection of natural resources. This issue was worsened by the exponential growth of this industry in recent decades, and sustainability has become a necessary response to the size and growth of tourism. Despite the increasing need for hospitality to limit its environmental impacts, and despite the large number of research papers dealing with sustainable tourism, sustainability still remains an ongoing debate and several tourist businesses are far from being sustainable in practice. The overall aim of this doctoral dissertation is therefore to make a contribution to reducing the gap between theory and practice in order to help the further dissemination of environmentally sustainable behaviors in hospitality businesses. More specifically, the purpose of the research is to investigate the modalities in which sustainable practices can be implemented, the main drivers for their implementation and the barriers that may constrain their implementation, both from the perspective of hospitality managers and tourists. The thesis comprises 3 research papers. Although each paper deals with different aspects of the same issue, i.e. environmental sustainability in the hospitality industry, they are to be considered as 3 separate papers. The thesis starts with a review of the literature on environmental sustainability in the hospitality industry, and this is followed by two empirical investigations. The literature review helped systematize concepts related to modalities, motivations and barriers for environmentally sustainable practices in hospitality, and provided a starting point for exploratory research. The first empirical investigation adopts a qualitative methodology and addresses hospitality managers’ perspectives in order to explore the validity in a real context of the concepts that emerged from the literature review. The second empirical investigation is quantitative and takes into account the tourist perspectives. Considering the perspectives of both the “producers” and the “consumers” of tourism experiences was deemed important to triangulate concepts and increase the overall validity of the research. The three chapters are briefly described below. The first paper is titled “Environmental sustainability and hospitality. A literature review on modalities, motivations and barriers”, and aims to critically review and systematize the following issues: (a) modalities for the implementation of environmentally sustainable behaviors in the hospitality industry; (b) motivations that drive hospitality managers to the implementation of environmentally sustainable behavior; and (c) barriers that may constrain the implementation of environmentally sustainable behavior. After conducting a content analysis of 44 research papers, I was able to classify concepts and create two theoretical frameworks: the HOW framework encompasses 5 areas for the implementation of environmentally sustainable behavior, i.e. waste management, water conservation, energy conservation, sustainable purchasing and people involvement; the WHY/WHY NOT framework involves 4 types of motivations and barriers that drive/prevent hospitality managers from implementing environmentally sustainable behavior, i.e. direct monetary motivations/barriers; indirect monetary motivations/barriers; non-monetary motivations/barriers; and personal motivations/barriers. These frameworks, in addition to adding to the existing literature on sustainability and hospitality, are a useful starting point for further exploratory research. The second paper is titled “Environmental sustainability and hospitality. An exploratory research on modalities, motivations and barriers” and builds on the findings of the previous paper in order to explore the validity and applicability of both theoretical frameworks in a real context. I conducted qualitative research based on primary data, through on-site visits and interviews with 18 managers of different lodging facilities, 8 located in the mature destination of Verona (Italy) and 8 located in the emerging context of Huelva (Spain), investigating modalities, motivations and barriers to the implementation of environmentally sustainable behavior. A middle ground approach to textual analysis was selected, starting from the theoretical underpinnings of the research, i.e. the two theoretical frameworks, but also taking into account recurrent and emerging themes. I was therefore able to incorporate emerging issues and provide adjusted versions of both frameworks: in the adjusted HOW framework the 5 areas for the implementation of environmentally sustainable behaviors are further divided into two sub-areas, increasing the specificity of the framework. In the adjusted WHY/WHY NOT framework, non-monetary facilitators together with motivations are included. Moreover, organizational facilitators and organizational barriers are added as a sub-category of non-monetary facilitators and barriers, respectively. Besides supporting the validity of both frameworks in a real context, the study has useful managerial implications about the advantages and disadvantages of environmental sustainability in the hospitality industry and about the potential sources of support for the successful implementation of environmentally sustainable behavior. However, only managerial perspectives are addressed in this work, while the perspective of other relevant stakeholders are lacking. The third paper, “Environmental sustainability and hospitality. How sustainability influences customers’ behavioral intentions”, takes into account the perspectives of a relevant stakeholder in the hospitality industry, i.e. tourists. The aim of the research is to investigate whether and to what extent different environmentally sustainable practices affect customers’ intentions when choosing a hotel, their expected satisfaction during the stay and willingness to pay a higher price in order to stay in “green” accommodation. I conducted quantitative research through online questionnaires to 237 respondents, asking the extent to which 10 different sustainable practices influence hotel choice, expected satisfaction and willingness to pay a 5% higher price. Sustainable practices were derived from the two previous papers and are of three different types: “health related”, “indirect involvement” and “low comfort” environmentally sustainable practices. Results support the idea that different sustainable practices have a different influence on customers’ behavioral intentions and while all types of practices positively affect hotel choice and expected satisfaction, some practices display a neutral or even negative influence on customers’ willingness to pay a higher price. The research adds to previous literature, supporting the idea that environmental sustainability is not a unique concept but involves different dimensions, that in turn display a different influence on customers’ behavioral intentions. In addition, practical implications for hospitality managers can be derived, and in particular I was able to create a ranking of priorities for the implementation of sustainable practices, considering both the influence on customers’ behavioral intentions and the economic effect on the hospitality organization of each sustainable practice. The limit of the study is that only behavioral intentions are considered, while often there is a gap between intentions and actual behavior. To sum up, this doctoral thesis provides important theoretical contributions that add to the previous literature on environmental sustainability in the hospitality industry: the two adjusted theoretical frameworks encompass modalities, motivations and barriers to the implementation of environmentally sustainable practices and help to systematize concepts; moreover, the distinction of three types of environmentally sustainable behaviors contributes to clarifying the fact that environmental sustainability has numerous aspects and dimensions. From these theoretical contributions, relevant practical implications for hospitality managers can be derived, as outlined at the end of each paper. These may help to facilitate the further dissemination of sustainable practices and behaviors in hospitality companies. The overall limitation of this study is that it addresses only the environmental dimension of sustainability and only hospitality companies, among the many types of organization in the tourism value chain. The reason for this choice is that tourism, and hospitality in particular, are probably more concerned with the environmental dimension of sustainability, due to the “resource-paradox” and the dependence on the natural environment of tourist businesses. An attractive environment is a core product, in addition to service quality; hospitality can and should play a significant role in the achievement of environmental sustainability. However, sustainability is a holistic concept with economic and sociocultural dimensions that often overlap. In addition, hospitality is only a part of the tourism value chain, and other tourist businesses may also have relevant impacts. Therefore, the study opens possibilities for further research that should broaden the focus of the analysis to include the economic and sociocultural dimensions of sustainability and other kinds of tourist organizations, enhance and promote the dissemination of triple bottom line sustainability, which should be the ultimate goal not just of tourism but of society at large.